I Love You.
In the end, I left the desserts unfinished.
Rubia had stopped moving her fork halfway through, so there was nothing I could do about it.
I tried forcing them down anyway, but it was hopeless.
Still, we talked a lot.
The important things she probably wouldn’t have been able to hear anyway.
So I just... stuck to pointless little stories.
Even so, it was fun.
“Ugh, but it’s such a waste leaving all this...”
“We can just have them packed up, right?”
“Still, eating them right here at the table feels different from eating them later.”
“What kind of logic is that?”
Rubia chuckled and stood, tray of desserts in hand.
“I’ll take one.”
“You will?”
This time she didn’t refuse—she simply held the tray out to me.
I nodded readily and took it.
“Where to now that we’re heading out?”
“The park. Let’s go sit and chat for a bit.”
“Chat? We already talked a ton—”
“Just now it was only you talking, Noah.”
“Ah... right.”
She was correct. I’d been the only one rambling the whole time.
Probably because I’d brought up something a little heavy... but it was something I absolutely had to say.
I didn’t want to leave on a heavy note right before we parted, either.
“I’ve got so much I want to say too, so look forward to it.”
“O-oh... okay.”
Rubia smiled brightly as she set her tray down at the counter.
I set mine down too, still a little dazed.
“Come on, let’s go.”
She turned on her heel and headed straight outside.
I checked the clock hanging behind the counter, then followed after her.
It was almost ten already.
Time really flies.
“Rubia, is the park far?”
“Hmm... we’ll have to walk a bit, but it’s not far. About fifteen minutes?”
“Got it.”
Jingle—
The door opened onto a completely different scene from earlier.
The lights illuminating the city were blazing bright, and not a single person remained out on the streets making repairs.
“It’s quiet. Everyone must be exhausted.”
“Yeah. A lot happened, after all.”
“A lot... yeah. Everyone must’ve had it rough.”
Still.
After something like that...
Wouldn’t people be so drunk on the fact they survived that they’d be out drinking and running around?
It was just... too quiet. It made me a little... resentful.
“But isn’t the quiet nice?”
I resented Rubia a little too.
“It feels like we’re the only two people left in the whole world.”
The Rubia walking ahead of me turned around with a soft smile.
“...Does it?”
The voice of the Rubia I knew overlapped with hers.
That face.
That moment.
At the ash-gray World’s End, cradled in my arms, she had said the exact same words.
With the exact same expression.
And the fact that we were about to part was exactly the same as back then.
I resented Rubia.
So I scooped up some of the snow scattered across the ground, packed it into a ball—
“Yah!”
—and flung it straight at her.
No rocks inside.
“...Oh my?”
Rubia turned fully around.
Snowflakes slid down hair whiter than snow itself.
Her expression was...
“H-hey, Rubia... you shouldn’t put rocks in snowballs...?”
She looked ready to cave my skull in with a rock right then and there.
“You started it, Noah...”
“N-no, I didn’t put any rocks in mine!”
“I’ll have you know I was quite the snowball fighter in my day.”
“Uh, uh, no Divine Power, okay?”
“My little brother used to cry for two whole days after snowball fights with me...”
“Ehh... just put rocks in them instead. W-what’s the point of using Divine Power for a snowball fight...”
I plopped down on the spot and packed snow as hard as I could.
I even slipped a little mana into it.
But... she was melting the snow with Divine Power and turning it into pure ice.
If my skull caved in, she’d heal it afterward, right?
Ha, damn.
I should’ve brought the greatsword.
If I could just spread Qi Sensing properly, I could dodge everything.
But still... still, today I wanted to play like an ordinary person in a peaceful world... so there was nothing for it.
“Noah. Even if you get hurt, I’ll heal you, so don’t worry too much.”
“You can’t see it, Rubia, but... I once beat Tyrant in a snowball fight.”
“Is that so. Then let’s give it a try.”
The moment Rubia stood and beamed, a total of eighteen snowballs came flying at me.
Ah. Eighteen.
“Ow, it still hurts...”
“Well? I’m pretty good, aren’t I?”
“I hate to admit it, but... you were a little stronger than Tyrant.”
“Hehe. You were pretty strong yourself, Noah.”
Sitting on a bench, I sipped the warm coffee Rubia had bought me and looked up at the sky.
The city lights were too bright to see clearly, but I could make out a little.
“It’s peaceful.”
“Yeah. Really peaceful.”
“You worked hard today.”
“You too, Rubia... you worked hard.”
About thirty minutes left, maybe.
“There are so many things I want to ask.”
“I see.”
“Really a lot. But... you’d just say you can’t answer most of them, right?”
“Most of them, yeah.”
A small sigh reached my ears.
“Then... I’ll ask the things you can answer.”
Rubia swallowed the sigh she’d just let out and turned her head toward me.
I turned mine as well and met her gaze.
I didn’t want to look away anymore.
“Noah.”
I nodded and took a mouthful of coffee.
“Am I pretty?”
“Pffft—!”
And immediately spat it out.
Thankfully Rubia spread Divine Power so none of it splashed, but...
What... what kind of question was that...?
“W-what did you say?”
“You can see right now, Noah.”
“W-well, yeah...?”
“That’s why I’m asking. How do I look to you?”
“Y-you’re pretty.”
I dropped my gaze.
The corners of Rubia’s lips curved into a soft arc.
“Where?”
“Hah...”
I knew this would happen.
The Rubia I knew had asked the exact same thing.
So what had I answered back then...
“Your eyes are pretty—sharp, but they go soft only when they look at me.”
“...What?”
“Your nose is cute when it twitches while you smell me.”
“Uh...”
“Your lips are pretty when they smile just the tiniest bit as you say my name.”
Rubia’s head turned away.
“And... I like all the things that are the opposite of me. Your white hair, your blue eyes, your confident personality—all of it.”
Rubia’s breath trembled.
Mine trembled right along with it.
The feelings I’d packed down so tightly spilled over.
Cracks spidered across the thick mask I’d worked so hard to build.
The person Rubia was looking at probably wasn’t me.
And the person I was looking at probably wasn’t Rubia either.
“You’re... still Noah.”
“Hm?”
“You said something like that once before. I couldn’t see, so I was feeling your face with my hands... and you said those exact words.”
“...Did I? Something that cringey?”
“Yes. So you do know it’s cringey.”
“I know...”
I knew. Even if the words were this cringey...
I knew I’d regret it later if I didn’t say them now.
So I just let them out.
“Anyway, so in your eyes I’m pretty?”
“Y-yeah.”
“Hehehe... I’m glad.”
Rubia slipped off her robe and let her hair tumble free.
Then... she suddenly said something completely out of the blue.
“They say if you follow every flowing stream, they all eventually meet at the same place.”
“Hmm... because they all came from the sea in the first place?”
“Yes. They all start from one place and flow back to one place.”
“I see.”
“So... even if we part, we’ll be able to meet again someday.”
Rubia stood and stretched.
“Noah.”
“Yeah?”
“You said when you want to celebrate something, you set off fireworks, right?”
“Yeah, I did?”
“Is that still true?”
“Why all of a sudd—”
Every light illuminating the city went out at once.
“Huh?”
Every sound vanished as well.
And then.
From Rubia’s body, standing right in front of me, brilliant Divine Power shot skyward.
Following that soaring light—
Boom-boom-boom—!
Countless fireworks bloomed across the sky.
Multicolored sparks began to light the world bright and beautiful.
“Ru...bia...?”
“Do you know how much I ran around to set this up?”
Even now, amid the endless bursts, I could see Rubia’s face.
She was smiling.
Brighter than the fireworks.
Brighter than the Divine Power.
“What... is this?”
“A gift. A gift for the hero who saved us.”
Hero.
Again, hero.
I am not a hero.
I shouldn’t be called one.
I don’t want to be called one.
I am a sinner.
Someone who killed people.
Who took their souls and used them to kill still more people.
All while telling myself it was the only way to save everyone.
Deceiving myself and the world as I walked forward.
A hypocrite.
“I don’t know what kind of life you’ve lived, Noah.”
Behind the fireworks, a blaze like the sun itself rose.
“I don’t know what you’ve been through either.”
Beside it, flower petals with no connection to the season began to scatter on the wind.
“But you were here, Noah.”
Rubia’s hand reached for my head.
“You stood here and saved this city.”
She pushed my tightly pulled-down hat back.
“No matter what anyone else says. No matter who says what.”
My black hair—
the hair that had been shunned as a demon’s—
and my red eyes
were laid bare to the world.
“You are our hero, Noah.”
The fireworks painting the sky illuminated a sinner.
“Both of you are my heroes.”
Light so beautiful it could blind poured down on me.
It was so dazzling
that I felt I shouldn’t look,
so I closed my eyes.
“I... am...”
Almost no Divine Power remained in my body.
My consciousness flickered.
There was so much I wanted to say.
So many things I still needed to say.
“...Rubia.”
But.
But... I shoved all of that aside.
The one thing I absolutely had to say.
Even if she wasn’t the Rubia I knew.
The words I should have told her.
The words I never got to deliver.
“I’m sorry.”
Sorry for telling you to hate me.
Sorry for telling you to forget everything.
Sorry for saying I regretted it.
“And.”
The nights we spent holding each other.
The words we whispered about the future.
The days we spent laughing together.
“I love you.”
They were happy.
They were precious.
I loved them.
“...Yes.”
Warmth wrapped around me.
A longed-for scent.
A beloved touch.
Embracing everything I was.
I opened my eyes and looked into those blue ones.
Inside them—
“I’m going.”
—was me, smiling happily.
“Come back safely.”
—was you, smiling happily.
Someday far in the future.
When we meet again.
Then—
in a peaceful world,
with many people,
drawing ordinary tomorrows,
may we be able to live.
Please.
May we be happy.